U17 head coach Ecker is re-watching videos of the youth team game between Dortmund and Düsseldorf.

Zhou Yi's performance was perfect except for no goals.

But then again, does he still care about one or two goals when he has such a performance?

Zhou Yi is positioned as the midfield organizer, and passing organization is his job. Scoring goals?

That's not in his ability assessment project.

However, Zhou Yi's performance was so good that Ecker was not too surprised.

Because he had watched Zhou Yi's performance, the Chinese youth against Dortmund youth team, and the series of performances after Zhou Yi's start-up impressed him.

So when he learned that Klopp had gone to Barcelona and signed the kid, he was not surprised at all.

He even was happy that Borussia Dortmund finally signed Zhou Yi.

This warm-up match only proves that Zhou Yi's physical fitness can play for the Dortmund U17 youth team.

The person who really surprised Ecker was not Zhou Yi, but... Mark Wagner.

This person who always serves as a substitute in the youth team and cannot even enter the roster, unexpectedly scored a hat trick in the game.

Some people say that scoring is not the only criterion for a player's performance.

But for forwards, especially centers, goals are the only criterion for measuring them.

A striker who cannot score goals may be excellent in other aspects, and everyone will still think that this striker is a bit of a bad idea.

But even if a striker performs in other aspects, even if he can score goals, everyone will think that he is an excellent striker.

For a long time, Ecker didn't think that Mark Wagner had the qualities to become an excellent striker in the youth team.

His physical fitness is not outstanding and his personal abilities are not outstanding.

If you have to find an advantage, it may be comprehensive.

It seems like everything can be done.

But it's just total mediocrity.

Ecker has always been unfavorable to Mark Wagner's future. He believes that this kid will definitely not be able to enter the first team of Dortmund and it is impossible to obtain a professional contract at Dortmund club.

His best result is to change a team to see if he can play in the second division.

Anyway, his future will not belong to Dortmund.

But after this game, Ecker had a different view.

If this is not Mark's accidental fortune, then...Ecker has to reassess Mark's future.

As long as Mark can continue this performance and continue to perform, it is too early for the first team to go to U19 at least.

Perhaps the biggest discovery in this game was Mark Wagner.

Then why did Mark perform like this?

Ecker doesn't find it difficult to guess about this, it's very simple, because of Zhou Yi.

Zhou Yi lives in Mark's house, and the tacit understanding between the two is guaranteed.

In the game, in addition to three assists, Zhou Yi also gave Mark a pass goal many times.

He passed Mark far more than he did to other teammates.

This conscious cooperation made Ecker think of more things.

He began to think about whether this combination could be fixed on the team?

Since Zhou Yi and Mark cooperate more tacitly, why not make them into a pair of combinations?

※※※

During the team's offensive training, Mark Wagner was arranged in a group with Zhou Yi.

At the beginning, no one took this action seriously, and they didn't think they were interested in the coach's arrangements.

But when Mark and Zhou Yi were placed in the same group for every offensive training, everyone finally came back to the topic - the coach made a deliberate arrangement, which was to take advantage of the tacit understanding between Zhou Yi and Mark.

However, no one has any objection to the coach's arrangement.

Everyone saw Mark's performance in the last game. Being able to score a hat trick means that he is in good shape and it is normal for the coach to be valued.

This arrangement is also a huge encouragement and affirmation for Mark, which makes Mark full of confidence in the next training. The recognition from the coach even has a greater positive effect on him than the hat trick in the game.

In the subsequent warm-up matches, Mark also played a very important role in the team.

Sometimes it is a starter, sometimes it is a substitute. Because it is a warm-up match, the meaning of starting substitute is no longer important.

The key is performance in the game.

Ecker also tested it and separated Zhou Yi and Mark, so he found that Mark's performance was completely different when he partnered Zhou Yi and did not partner Zhou Yi.

When he was present at the same time as Zhou Yi, he was like a fish in water.

But when Zhou Yi was not on the court, he seemed helpless.

But is this Mark's problem?

After careful observation, Ecker concluded that this is a problem for other Dortmund players.

After these warm-up matches, Ecker found that Mark is actually a striker who is good at finding a range. He is not strong enough and his speed is not outstanding. So if he wants to have a chance to shoot in the penalty area, it is best to be able to catch the ball in the air.

If he can't do that, it will be difficult for him to score.

Looking for the space near the penalty area is like instinct for Mark.

When Zhou Yi was on the court, Mark found his absent, and Zhou Yi also found his absent. Passing the football over, Mark could create a chance to shoot.

But if Zhou Yi is not present, even if Mark finds a free time, his teammates may not be able to send the football in time. It is not that other Dortmund players can't find a free time or pass it on, but that in this regard, Zhou Yi's actions are faster than them.

This is what it means to understand the game one to two seconds faster than ordinary players.

In this regard, Zidane is an expert. He once said that in fact, he is just one to two seconds shorter than others' reading competitions.

But it is only in one to two seconds that determine whether a player is an ordinary role player or a world-class master.

Since Zhou Yi and Mark cooperate better than other teammates, what reason is there to break them up?

Maybe we can create a golden partner of Dortmund U17?

※※※

The winter break in the Bundesliga has ended, but the Youth League has not yet begun.

Because there are fewer teams participating in the Youth League.

The latest youth team game will be held until the end of February.

German football has a youth league with a complete game system, both U17 and U19.

And it is national.

However, there was no such statement before 2002. In 2002, in order to increase the efforts to train young players, the German Football Association decided to establish a national youth football league.

The league is divided into three divisions, northeast, west and south according to the geographical locations of each region.

Dortmund U17 is in the Western Conference and is currently ranked fifth. The results are not very good, but they are not bad either. When they had the best results, they reached the second in the league, second only to their arch-rival Schalke 04U17 team.

Later, after Gotze, Schneider and others were transferred to the first team and U19, the team's performance began to decline and fluctuate.

By the winter break, it was ranked fifth.

Schalke 04U17 ranked first.

A total of fourteen teams participated in the Western Conference, basically all youth teams from various professional clubs participated.

Compared with adult team competitions, youth team competitions are not so formal and relatively casual.

For example, you can often see a strange face in one game, and the next time you fight, the person will disappear. He may have been temporarily drawn from the low-level youth team and went back after playing this game.

There is also a player who always performs in U17-level teams who are valued by U19 or U23, or even by the first team. They jump three times like Rockets and go directly to the first team to participate in the game. Naturally, they can't see it in the youth team.

For example, Gotze is like this.

Although he is not old, only sixteen years old, it is difficult for U17 to improve his strength. It is normal to go to a higher-level team to challenge more difficult opponents at this time.

On days when there is no official competition, the youth team mainly relies on warm-up matches and friendly matches with various youth teams to maintain the game state.

In these games, Mark has stabilized his starting position with his outstanding performance.

After completing five games of the hat-trick for the first time, Mark completed the hat-trick again, and of course, these three goals were also assisted by Zhou Yi.

When the last warm-up match ended, Mark handed over a report card for everyone to look at him - seven warm-up matches, he scored a total of 18 goals, making him the team's best scorer during this period.

In Mark, everyone seemed to see the story of "the ugly duckling turning into a swan".

Before the winter break, he was still a ten thousand-year substitute who was difficult to even enter the roster of the game. Unexpectedly, he has now become the offensive firepower point that the team relies most on.

Many people couldn't understand why such a huge change occurred in Mark at first, and it is not an exaggeration to describe it as "earth-turning".

Later they realized that it was all because of Zhou Yi.

Before Zhou Yi came to the team, Mark was a useless mediocre player. Although he was able to rise from U9 to U17 at Dortmund, U17 was the peak he could do his best to reach.

It is impossible to go further.

No one is optimistic about Mark's future.

But when Zhou Yi came to the team, someone finally found the shining spots hidden on Mark and inspired it.

Mark then gained a new life.

If the Dortmund youth team does not have Zhou Yi, Mark will continue to sink like this until he finally leaves the team.

By then, no one knows that they have missed a qualified professional player.

This is the risk in football. Perhaps there are many young people who leave football for various reasons. They are not because they are not capable enough, but just lack the right person to inspire them.
Chapter completed!